Tagged: Mali

President Obama has told Congress the last of about 100 troops has arrived in Niger, where they'll assist French troops with intelligence work. France has an ongoing military operation in neighboring Mali, where troops are pushing out Islamist militants.

As France continues to talk about withdrawing troops from Mali, following its military operations there against Islamist attackers, there are new reports of fighting in the northern city of Gao.

An enormous cache of explosive material turned up this week in Gao, one of the northern Malian cities retaken by French and Malian troops. There are varying reports on its complexity and size, but the Associated Press reports the French military pulled about 1,700 pounds of explosive material out of a single building.